Video 02 - Teasing the Script

Here's another quickly and sloppily edited video of us on the set.  This was while we were preparing to shoot the scene that will start the movie, and to lighten the mood Jourdan decided to start teasing my script.  This turned into a goofy game between she and Scott.  Good times. 

You also get to see my pensive face.

Today I am getting ready for our trip to Pleasant Hill. Half of the movie takes place in Santa Cruz, and the other half takes place in my home town of Pleasant Hill. Thus, I am stealing Alex, Shashona, and our trusty Do-Everything-Man Ryan McDuffie and bringing them to Pleasant Hill for the weekend. There, we will meet up with Scott and Jourdan, and we will film NON-STOP. 48 hours to film half of the movie. 16 pages. Thus far it's taken us about 5 days to shoot 18 pages, and now we have to try to do all of that in the course of one weekend. It will be Insane.

Hopefully I'll have a friend there with a camera to document the insanity. If you're lucky you may get to see things like people sleeping in between takes, people angry and annoyed at me for making them stay up all night, us all laughing deliriously at something not that funny--like a pin dropping on the floor or something, and quite possibly me curled up in a ball laughing/crying against a washing machine (I kid you not, it's happened before). Oh, and I should mention one of the scenes that we're filming isn't done being written yet.

Please, Please, Please--Wish us luck. :)

~Michael

Video Set Tour

Hey folks,

We just wrapped the second weekend of shooting, and today Jourdan and Scott were nice enough to give a video set tour of our shoot.  Nothing fancy, as you'll see, but hopefully entertaining enough.  More videos to come, check it out.

Production Has Begun

Phew!

So from Friday night to Tuesday night, we filmed nonstop crazy-like.  It was a whirlwind and it was amazing.  I'm so excited, everyone involved in the project is working tremendously hard, and it's all going to be worth it.

The footage that we've shot so far looks really good.  For those of you interested, we're using the Sony XDCAM EX-1...and it's the best thing I've ever seen.  The footage looks so cinematic, and it's HD at 1080p so...yeah, looks good.  I'm lucky enough to have a 42" Plasma for an editing monitor...which is *awesome.*

Out of the 50 pages of script, we've shot 14 so far, putting us at about 28% done with shooting.  This weekend is a light weekend cause we're focusing on Alex's movie, but then next weekend will be ridiculous.  We'll be traveling to my home town to shoot about 40% of the movie in 48 hours...it's going to be intense.  That plus an hour and a half travel time will make for a very..exciting..shoot.

Once I have enough footage I'll start working on a teaser to give a glimpse of what we have so far.

Thanks for reading, and if there's anything you want from me...please don't hesitate to ask.  Also -- the new Death Cab for Cutie album is out, and if you love them as much as me, then you will love this album.  It has quickly become a favorite of mine.

Thanks everyone,

~Michael

Oh, glimpse:

The Time Is A-Comin

So;

Life is busy.

We have started filming Alex's movie, and it looks amazing.  The actors are doing a phenomenal job and everything looks really good.  Check it out here.  He's got a good production crew going, and things are going pretty smoothly.  There is a small crisis at the moment, but I'm sure it'll all turn out fine.  The first musical number was at a local movie theater that is super old and we shot in the really nice lobby.  The shot was a long-take of 40 seconds of the song, and so when we got there Alex, Shashona and the extras began choreographing the dance while I set up my dolly and the camera and this guy Corey set up lights.  It was awesome.  Again, the video's on his site.

As far as the Reunion goes, there have been some scheduling complications.  I'm currently waiting on the final word from a couple people, and then the schedule will be locked.  In the meantime I've been storyboarding (something that's basically a must if you want the movie to be good).  I've storyboarded the first 5 pages of 49...and I'm already at 42 shots.  That's a lot.  The "Prologue" had like, 70 shots total.  I'm starting to realize how huge this project is going to be.

In less freaking-out areas, my birthday was this past Monday, and it was awesome.  My friends took me to The Olive Garden because I'd never been and I love pasta.  Long-story-short, it was lots of fun and I accidentally didn't end up ordering pasta.  We'll have to go back.

OH YEAH, I also got to go to Skywalker Sound on my birthday.  I had a shoot with my buddy Michael Coleman, so I got to do that.  It was awesome.  (For those of you who aren't Star Wars geeks, that's George Lucas's Skywalker Ranch, where they do the sound editing and mixing for huge movies...like Iron Man and Indy 4).

So now I am going to keep storyboarding, gathering props, finalizing locations, and hopefully start rehearsals pretty soon.  Jourdan is now back from BYU, and no longer has any excuse not to contribute to the blog.  Shashona however is the busiest and most exhausted person I've ever seen in my life, so, we'll give her a pass for now.

Alex just called me, and the mini-crisis he was having is now fixed. Phew!  If things went well all the time I'd be worried.  So that's what I got for now.  I will continue to keep you updated and as soon as we start filming I'll be posting some dailies and clips, etc.  Stay Tuned!

~ Michael